Sklansky Bucks

Poker is definitely a game of skill. However, the luck factor influences the winnings in the short run. Sklansky bucks is a tool with the goal of filtering variance out from the short term results. The concept was created by David Sklansky, a professional poker player and writer.

Sklansky bucks

Sklansky bucks refer to the expected winnings (or losses) based on your equity against the opponent hands on a given betting round.

This formula can be particularly useful when you try to recover emotionally after receiving a bad beat. Just imagine a situation when you go all-in preflop with AA against KK for $200. Pretty common match up in poker. The board comes 9QJ2K and you lose the pot to the opponent’s three of a kind. Rather than getting mad and start playing on tilt, you can make a little break and calculate your Sklansky bucks, instead.

How to calculate Sklansky bucks?

You can compute your Sklansky bucks in 3 steps:

1. Find out your equity at the moment you put all your chips in the pot.

Even if you were a geek mathematician, it would take a whole life to work out your equity for a single hand manually. You would have to analyze over one million possible boards for those two specific hands. Fortunately, you can use our poker odds calculator to work out the equity for you instantly. You will then know that AA has approximately 81% equity against KK.

2. Multiply the equity by the total pot size.

Both of you had $200 in stacks and went all-in so the total pot size was $400. When you multiply $400 by 0.81, you will get $324. This is the average pot you can expect to win in the long run with AA going all-in preflop against KK.

3. Subtract the money you put in the pot.

$324 is the revenue. To calculate your expected profit, you need to subtract the cost of playing this hand. After subtracting $200 from $324, you will get $124. This is the average profit you can expect to make in the long run by going all-in preflop with AA against KK.

In the example presented above, you lost $200 in real money but won $124 in Sklansky bucks. Therefore, you won $324 less than expected but do not worry, you will get it back in the future, there is no doubt about it.

Conclusion on Sklansky bucks

Short term poker results are heavily affected by the element of luck. Sklansky bucks allow to estimate your edge in the game in the short run. In the long run, Sklansky bucks will always be equal to your actual winnings. Whenever you receive a bad beat, think about your expected value rather than the actual result of the hand. You will be less annoyed and always able to play your best game no matter how harsh variance is for you.